Help with hatching

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Jennie Mc

Jennie Mc

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11 Years
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this is my first time writing to ask for help. I inherited a Tom and a hen turkey and 8 chickens ( one a rooster) from my husband's father. the turkey hen has been sitting on chicken eggs. I went and bought a candler and saw that quite a few were fertile but at all different stages. Today I went out and saw that some of the chickens had attacked one that evidently was trying to hatch this morning so I have gone and purchased a incubator pulled all the little eggs out and I have them inside now any suggestions please please post I have one peeping at me already, incubator has the moisture control the heater the fan it's the best way I could get it's a good one thank you in advance for any help
 
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I just had the one peeping hatch!! Oh my... My heart is racing.. First time ever to do this.. The stuff I have read says to remove the eggs and let then lay on the bottom when starting to pip and zip? But there are so many that are days and weeks behind the one that hatched.. I really quickly opened the top while my husband yanked out one of the trays so I can lay the little baby down after she got out of her shell and I could see she had nothing to soak up, :) at least she already soaked up the yolk. The machine is doing awesome, I'm on the bathroom floor, nice and warm in here and humid, so machine temp was back to normal in a minute if that. How long do I let little baby stay in there?
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Congratulations on the new chick! I am not sure what you mean by trays? Do you have the eggs in a turner?
You might want to post in the incubating and hatching eggs forum. www.backyardchickens.com/f/5/incubating-amp-hatching-eggs
If I understand correctly, you have eggs at different/ unknown stages of development in the same incubator? (Usually if you hear peeping, the egg will hatch in the next day or so.) For lockdown/hatch for those ones that seem to be hatching in the next day or two, try to get the humidity around 65% and the temperature at 99.5 or so now, try to leave the incubator closed for the next day or so even if a chick or two has hatched (most people will take chicks out once a day at most, they are fine for two days), try not to open it if you see a pipped egg since if the membranes dry out too much the chick can have trouble hatching. If you don't see any more pipped eggs or if you are able to candle the eggs and get an idea of development and you can figure out how far along the others are, lower the humidity to 50% or so until the next ones are due. If you think you basically have chicks due everyday for an unknown period of time, you pretty much have to keep the humidity high for the hatching ones, and hope the younger ones lose enough water to hatch correctly (main problem with varying hatching dates in the same incubator, eggs generally need lower humidity levels the first 18 days to lose the correct amount of weigh, and then higher levels the last few days to be able to hatch.)
Be sure to check out the Learning Center chick articles https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-and-raising-chicks especially the Hatching 101 article www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 and this is a good one on taking care of your new chicks the first few weeks https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/raising-your-baby-chicks
 
Kelsie2290 .. Thank you so much! Your information is wonderful, I will be clicking links and reading when I finish this post. I have read some articles but never posted a call out for help, I was so worried for the little baby. After seeing part of one being fought after this am I was sick to my stomach, yea it was gross but the reason for me was that poor little life and it's wonderful moment of life turned to suffering... :/ urggg!! Yea I'm a softie when it comes to animals :) I love them all.
I had purchased the incubator for this late spring to try and hatch some Bantam eggs and maybe turkey later. I'm glad I had it as a stand by.. The Turkeys and chickens came from my father in law. They are in his pen that we had to take down and put up on my property. He is not in good health and could not keep them. My girls have their own pen and I am so into their day to day business it's funny. I'm just getting to know the new ones. I discovered a weekend ago that the reason the new pen didn't have many eggs was the Turkey hen was taking them !! Crazy!! She has been hiding out in the back corner of the large shed/coop they have and would hiss at me so I left her alone, well like I said discovered that she was taking eggs and told hubby, he laughed too. Went and purchased a candler, after many snaps from Miss Henny I learned what a fertilized egg looks like.. Have been checking all this weekend since web photos matched up that the eggs should be hatching (some) .. I really was not prepared for her hatching out chicken eggs and thought with all of her hissing she wouldn't let anyone else near her like she did me.. Well lesson learned!! Now I just feel like I owe these little ones the life that was started. :) here's to the first one making it :) thank you again so much ! I <3 my chi chi's!!
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